REVIEW: Ingrid Goes West [2017]

“What’s your biggest emotional wound?” Many people are going to like Ingrid Goes West because its dark comedy seemingly mocks a culture they’ve wholeheartedly embraced. They’ll laugh because they see the titular lead (Aubrey Plaza‘s Ingrid Thorburn) as an exaggerated version of themselves: glued to social media, but letting it literally control her life. She’s who they could be if they didn’t have the self-control to stop themselves from losing perspective as far as differentiating real life and identity from the fictitious ones cultivated online. So on this shallow, surface…

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REVIEW: Brigsby Bear [2017]

“Prophecy is meaningless. Trust only your familial unit.” The best films are those that come out of nowhere and should be viewed as such. Seriously. Stop reading and go see Brigsby Bear yourself because the less you know about it the better. That’s not to say its conceit is a spoiler—its complete shift in perspective and environment occurs barely fifteen minutes in and proves crucial as the impetus for the entire plot—but I was glad I was completely unaware. I read the description about how the film deals with a…

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REVIEW: Zombi 2 [Zombie] [1979]

“It never pays to ignore native superstitions” While Zombie may be known as a horror classic, its origins are almost farcical. Helmed by “Godfather of Gore” Lucio Fulci, the Italian-produced project was already in development (from a script by Dardano Sacchetti before wife Elisa Briganti took over) when the European release for George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead began its repackaging as Zombi. The latter was a re-edited cut by Dario Argento complete with new Goblin score, so its success screamed for a quick Italian follow-up. Suddenly Fulci’s film became…

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TIFF17 REVIEW: Hva vil folk si [What Will People Say] [2017]

“You haven’t done anything wrong” The Toronto International Film Festival synopsis calls Iram Haq‘s latest film Hva vil folk si [What Will People Say] an “empathetic story of family, community, and culture.” I would call it straight up social horror made scarier when you discover that it was partly inspired by the artist’s own life. That festival description had me anticipating a road to catharsis wherein a culture clash between strictly conservative Pakistani Muslim values and a more liberal European lifestyle would force young Nisha (Maria Mozhdah) and her parents…

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REVIEW: The Glass Castle [2017]

“You learn from living. Everything else is a damn lie.” It’s easy to dismiss films like Destin Daniel Cretton‘s The Glass Castle for losing their bite upon reaching a conclusion nobody can deny is melodramatically sentimental. You’ve watched Jeannette Walls’ (Brie Larson) decades-long journey of psychological pain and suffering wrought during her upbringing and ever-present in adulthood. You’ve seen trying times in poverty crosscut with present success, emboldened by her strength to stand tall and be the woman she wants to be no matter what the voices of her past…

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REVIEW: The Killers [1946]

“Stop listening to those golden harps, Swede” “The Killers” is a dialogue-driven short story by Ernest Hemingway that describes the melancholic criminal comeuppance of a man long-removed from the deeds that signed his death warrant. It reads like a fast-paced and stripped-down script whose intrigue is built out of that which we’ll never know. Context provides motivations rather than meaning, the underlying sorrow ingrained within its matter-of-fact, gangster machinations conjuring existential empathy rather than good versus evil justice. The men tasked with killing a Brentwood resident they’ve never met aren’t…

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REVIEW: Billy Liar [1963]

“Today’s a day of big decisions” When you live in a small town where everyone knows your name, flights of fancy can prove your only escape. Not everyone imagines a whole country to forget him/herself in when times get tough, but Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is a one-of-a-kind guy. You can’t even blame him since fantasies of unearned heroics and power do sound better than a sedentary life at home with nagging (for good reason) parents (Wilfred Pickles‘ Geoffrey and Mona Washbourne‘s Alice) and at work as a mortuary clerk.…

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REVIEW: It [1990]

“It just isn’t empirically possible” Considering I was around ten-years old when first seeing Tommy Lee Wallace‘s “It”—I’m pretty sure it was post-1990 since I was only eight then—my memory held its adaptation of Stephen King‘s novel in high regard. I probably watched bits and pieces over the next could decades, always believing it to be scary for more reasons than just Tim Curry‘s performance as Pennywise the clown. Something about the underbelly of suburbia and the idea that malevolence exists to force its residents into doing nightmarish acts struck…

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TIFF17 REVIEW: Beyond Words [2017]

“A change of perspective from high to low normally brings new discoveries” An African man—a hopeful immigrant—says something very interesting to his prospective lawyer Michael (Jakub Gierszal) at the start of Urszula Antoniak‘s Beyond Words. When asked if he has a better excuse for finding refuge in Germany than the simple desire to choose his own home as a free human being, he says, “No.” He states that he doesn’t need one. It’s an argument that’s been raging here in America since the 2016 presidential campaign began, this idea that…

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REVIEW: Logan Lucky [2017]

“Did you just say cauliflower to me?” The story is as follows: Steven Soderbergh—while on hiatus from feature films (previously known as retirement)—received a script from a mutual friend of his and screenwriter Rebecca Blunt (who might not be a real person). He fell in love with its stripped down Ocean’s 11 feel devoid of the posh financial backing robbing casinos needs and knew he’d regret handing it off to a recommended contemporary instead of helming it himself. Soderbergh therefore sat on this hillbilly heist gem until his show (“The…

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REVIEW: Lycan [2017]

“I don’t want to go into the woods” There’s a monster in the forest—or at least the rumors purport it. Horrific murders occurred on land not too far from a small Southern town’s local college, the stuff of urban legend that unfortunately concluded with the predator’s dead body in a grave hidden on private property nobody ever thought to find. Were those stories based on truth? A cover-up? Or perhaps complete fairy tale? Thanks to Professor Anderson’s (Vanesssa Angel) final project, an assigned group of six students have the opportunity…

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